Monk: Census will continue to support confidentiality of trade data

Monk: Census will continue to support confidentiality of trade data    The head of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division told representatives of a international trade data users organization in Washington Tuesday his agency will continue to support confidentiality of trade information supplied to it by the shipping industry.
   “I don’t want people to get the wrong perception about our position on confidentiality,” said C. Harvey Monk Jr., chief of Census’ Foreign Trade Division, at a meeting of the International Trade Data Users meeting Tuesday.
   Census heavily guards its trade data. Over the years, the agency has only released limited amounts of this information to other federal agencies for national security purposes, such as export control regulations.
   However, U.S. Commerce Department secretary Donald Evans recently granted a request by the Homeland Security Department and Customs and Border Protection for access to export data controlled by Census to help Mexican authorities identify misdeclared cargo. The request was formalized between the agencies April 7.
   The announcement prompted an outcry from various U.S. shipping industry groups, such as the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America, American Association of Exporters and Importers, and the Agriculture Ocean Transportation Committee, concerned that this information could be misused by overseas governments.
   “We will continue to support confidentiality and will try to develop a reasonable policy that balances the needs of national security,” Monk said.
   (For more information about the trade data confidentiality debate, read the May American Shipper, pages 8-15.)